


Twelve Steps

by MadiYasha



Category: South Park
Genre: Alcoholism, Gen, Underage Drinking, pairings/additional characters will show up later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1535525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadiYasha/pseuds/MadiYasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you’ve heard the story of how the seed plants itself, then you know the rafflesia it grows to be in a few months time.  If you haven’t, there’s no possible way you really could imagine what it’s like.</p><p>(an introspective [???] fic about Stan Marsh's potential alcoholism. on indefinite hiatus.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. serenity

**Author's Note:**

> I always see people saying "Underage alcoholic Stan is overdone get off the angst train" and to them I say fuck no, fuck no, underage alcoholic Stan is not done enough. This kinda shit in my media matters a lot to me as, um... an underage alcoholic, and I'm gonna write to high hell about it because damn if it isn't what I know best.
> 
> Enjoy your amateur fic and thanks for reading, buckaroos.

Stan Marsh was 10 years old the first time he held the bottle.

If you’ve heard the story of how the seed plants itself, then you know the rafflesia it grows to be in a few months time.  If you haven’t, there’s no possible way you really could imagine what it’s like.  Extended metaphors be damned, Stan refused trying to explain it anymore--and there was no use in trying to surround himself with people who did understand.  As far as he was convinced, they weren’t out there.

One morning, he woke up and the skies he’d laughed under his entire life were darkened.  When the snow fell, he stopped seeing snowballs, stopped feeling the laughter of a child in his throat.  It fizzled out like a firework before sunset.  He’d seen things in his life people wouldn’t believe--he’d cried, pissed his pants, ran away screaming--the whole routine.  Why was it that now, when things changed so harmlessly and quietly, he was more terrified than he’d ever been before?  So silently, the tears and snotty face he’d known in childhood buried deep behind a stone-walled exterior.  This monster roared at parts of him he didn’t know could hurt.

Stan watched the wrapping paper peel off the world around him, his childhood clawed at its skin with dull nails bit by bit until the flesh beneath was exposed, bleeding and grotesque.  He woke up every morning with bile in the back of his throat where there once were words.  When he did speak, the bitterness that came off his speech was so thick and viscous you could cut it with a knife.

Weeks passed before he was inducted into a circle of individuals, all of them the same grey shade that the rest of the world was wrapped in.  Stan remembers his feet moving on their own, remembers hearing only in syllables, as he always has.  Up until the point his subconscious registered it; the monologue that began his downfall.

_"Others deserve to know the truth! You see everything as shit, don't you?! Where other people see fun movies and hear cool music, all you see and hear is shit! Am I right?"_

Stan's movements halted, his heart lurched.  He didn't know or care what he was feeling, only that he felt it.

“Y… yeah.”

The boy didn't need to reminisce on what they said thereafter--how ludicrous it was.  All that mattered was that second where they let him know they’d come far enough to know how to stop it.  The second they told him he could go back into the world he loved.  Where his family was, where his friends were, where he wasn't scared to open his mouth for fear of the accusatory stares of the people he loved.

_Your negativity is like poison to me._

Kids weren't suppose to drink, but what other rules had he broken? This wasn't for fun, this wasn't for rebellion, he needed this.  Stan had heard tales of the chemicals in your brain getting messed up with age, and he'd heard there was medicine to make them better.  He was just happy to have found his.

* * *

When all was said and done, he stared at the broken bottle on the floor.  Defiantly, with the mindset of acceptance at his front, he declared he was done.  With falling prey to the way he was forced to see, with the filter he no longer had, and with escaping to a world he knew had nothing for him but memories.  He stared at the road in front of him and moved leftwards.

The world suddenly hit him, full stop.  The skinless demon that was his universe bent down and ruffled his black hair-- _you thought an optimistic mindset was an option?  Don't make me laugh, Stanley._

That night, after he moved back into his childhood home, he waited for the screaming.  He waited, ears buried in a pillow, and nothing came.  His parents pretended.  Shelley pretended.  Everyone pretended that everything was okay, that nothing had changed, that they were a happy little family and nothing was amiss.

He laid awake for hours.  Until Saturday's morning sun had easily made itself around the globe.  Stan stared at the green constellations dancing on his star projector, the machine's churning a swan song of background static as he memorized the folds of the Bronco's logo cemented on his walls.  There were memories behind the posters thumbtacked around him, the photos in his drawers, but the warmth they left was only replaced by cold, bone-chilling nostalgia.

The boy slumped up, throwing his hat aimlessly on the floor and running bitten down nails through dark hair.  He got up, shifting his weight carefully so as not to let anyone hear his footsteps as he trudged down the stairs.

In the garage, his father had a separate fridge for the gratuitous amount of alcohol he consumed on a daily basis.  Not only did Stan know that his dad wasn't competent enough to notice a whole bottle of whiskey missing amongst the forest of bottlecaps, he also knew that if anyone was going to be blamed it would be resident teenager Shelley--which was always a bonus, beatings notwithstanding.

Stan looked cautiously in both directions, waiting for the moment when his mom would wake up and disappointedly catch him in the act.  Waiting for Sparky to start howling at unknown noises coming from the garage, ever loyal--but there was silence.  Everyone was too busy sleeping.  Too busy pretending.  

_This is a happy little family and nothing is amiss._

He sighed, hands shaking, and shoved the glass neck in his jacket before zipping it up.  Still waiting for the facade to end.  When he opened the garage door back up.  When he made his way past the kitchen, up the stairs, when he shut his door.  He waited for the inevitable _Stan, what are you doing awake still?_ and the probing questions about the strange bulge in his jacket.  Nothing.  Silence.  He wasn't sure if he liked it more than the head-rattling noise he was so accustomed to.

He shut his bedroom door and heaved a sigh of relief he didn't even realize he'd been holding in.  With it, Stan's knees gave slowly and he tumbled quietly down to the floor, the back of his head resting against the flimsy wood separating him from the rest of the world.  His hands were still shaking, and he sucked in another breath as he slowly undid the top of the bottle.

_But, you said you were done,_ he told himself without speaking. _What are you doing?_

The liquor burned his nostrils and looked like acid as it sloshed around in his hands.  He didn't like it.  He just liked what it did to him.  He needed to know if it was worth it--two times wasn't enough to really know if giving up everything that made him happy was worth everything.

"I can't lose my friends," He whispered to the bottle before holding it up to chapped and worn lips.  "They're all I really have left."

Stan coughed and sputtered, his throat burning in agony.  He drank until his limbs went numb, until the lights outside moved like fireflies, until the constellations on his ceiling spelled out words, and until the could stare at the photos in his bedside drawer without feeling nothing.

The world now existed in a fuzzy state, and he understood it was because the cloudy window he had seen everything through prior--adorned with glitter and stickers and fingerpainted, smiling sunshines--had temporarily reassembled itself so that he could gaze beyond it once again.

He retired the bottle to the drawer next to the door, burying it in clothes with the hopes that no one would ever see.  Stan stumbled to his bed, where dreamt in colour for the first time in a long time.


	2. change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was like watching a painting burn right in front of his eyes. The painting was already of a massive pile of shit, and now it was on fire and on his doorstep. One drink gave him the energy to stamp it out, but there was still shit on his foot, so he took 3 more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry my update schedule is non-existent. i ended up completely re-writing the next few chapters because i hated them so bad, and i still kind of hate them. hopefully they're alright.

It became the norm so easily, it barely mattered that the beginning of it was utter hell.

A sick paranoia came along with the whiskey bottle in Stan's drawer, the vision of his mom putting away his clothes and seeing a brief flash of glass buried beneath it all.  He knew he couldn't keep playing with fire forever.

He moved it to below his bed, in a small box full of love notes from a girl with hair black as the night and brown eyes that made his knees weak.  Anyone who discovered it would understand why the box was safely tucked away down there; of course a young boy doesn't want anyone stumbling upon hushed words exchanged between him and the girl he liked.  They might take a couple out and laugh at the childish declarations of love ( _“Your hair looked pretty today,” “I was eating a cupcake and it reminded me of you because of how sweet it was”_ ) but odds are, they’d leave it alone.

No one would probe deeper and find the bottle hidden underneath the papers.  It was less convenient—having to pull it out, take the paper off, and put it all back together after he’d taken a sip or two—but it ate at his nerves far less and made the buzz that much enjoyable.  It was always a sip in the morning and maybe a sip at night, to take the edge off.

Sooner or later, that sip at night became certain.  Stan didn't know why, but the world only got worse over time.  It was like watching a painting burn right in front of his eyes.  The painting was already of a massive pile of shit, and now it was on fire and on his doorstep.  One drink gave him the energy to stamp it out, but there was still shit on his foot, so he took 3 more.  Before the boy knew it, he’d gotten to a point where the bottle would be halfway empty after a few days.  

He never grew accustomed to the taste, really.  It still burned like drinking acid, he still coughed and choked whenever he managed to swallow a mouthful, but the warmth was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.  He relished it, the feeling of his body growing hot and going numb.  Fire in his veins.  Iron in his muscles.  That feeling of suddenly being able to take on anything.  It was like taking medicine, but with near instant relief.

Stan’s dad never noticed; and if he did, he never spoke a word.  The boy experimented.  On brave nights, he wouldn't take whiskey.  He found a fondness for vodka after weeks of examining different bottles as if they were magic potions.  As far as he was concerned, they kinda were.  The vodka didn't go down easy, either, but there was more of it to get through and for that he was grateful.

Sometimes he’d show up to the bus stop, only tripping over his own feet a little, but enough to warrant a raised eyebrow from Kyle.  The redhead would never really ask, not until they would get on the bus and Stan would lean his head against the window, barely smiling.

“What’s up with you, dude?  You’re acting weird.”

“Nothin’,” He’d mumble.  “Just tired.”

It wasn’t a lie.  He was very, very tired.

* * *

 

Stan leaned back, sighing as he stared intrusively into the overcast Colorado skies.

He kicked the empty can by his feet, sending it plummeting into the mud.  The sun had set at Stark's Pond and the children had gone home long ago.  He stifled a pitiful laugh when he realized he was a child, too.

It sure stopped feeling like it somewhere along the way.

Being out here this late was freezing him half to death and he would've cared a little more if he’d remembered what the texture of warmth’s sickly embrace even felt like.  He put the thought out of his mind and took another sip from the half-full can in his hand.

 _Fucking disgusting_ , he noted. The beer was cheap as is, bought off some teenager he didn’t even remember how he met.  It was all the same.  It all blurred together.  The beer was cheap, and his gloved hand was quickly turning it into lukewarm shit despite the frozen air hanging around him.

Another thing Stan doesn't remember very well was how exactly this became his routine.  Coming out here every day with a couple cans stuffed in his backpack—as many as he could manage on his allowance at a time—cracking them open one by one, guzzling them down and choking back the urge to vomit while he buried his boots in the snow.  Sometimes stars would make it through the hazey clouds above him, and after enough drinks made their way through the boy’s system, he really admired the beauty of it all.

Stan’s thumbs were calloused from playing guitar and he ran them over his outdated Gameboy SP, dazedly jamming buttons and watching the pixels move on the screen.  His friends would make fun of him, but everyone knew the trumpet-laden midi soundtrack of 3rd Gen Chinpokomon was the absolute best around.

Always the same stuff.  Walk, drink, stumble.  Text your mom and let her know you’re “staying late at Kyle’s again to work on Homework.”  Drink some more.  Enough that the stars shine, that the snow sparkles.  Enough that when Stan looks into his reflection rippling lazily in the water below him, he doesn’t see a broken grayscale silhouette doomed to wander a planet of creatures who bleed brilliant colours.

When the colour, however artificial, began to leak out of him and into the barren world he’d still not grown used to, he knew it was time to head home.  His mom would be asleep, his dad would be passed out on the couch with the Food Network on low—the ghosted image of Alton Brown whispering sweet nothings to an empty room—and no one would notice him slip in and begin the creation of another colossal hangover.

Stan shut his Gameboy and stood up, wavering slightly.  His head spun and he caught his balance.   _I could pass a breathalyzer,_ he reassured himself.   _But with, like, a C-._

His gaze caught footprints in the snow, and he wondered immediately why his subconscious was so fixated on their embossed image in the snow behind him.  He squinted, fascinated.  Like those prints were his whole world.  There was something so familiar about them, and he probed his intoxicated, swirling smoothie of a brain for any identification.

It only came to him when he’d given up and started to walk away—when he was miles from the pond, in fact.  The image of Kyle’s wet snowboots, stamped finely on the school carpeting.  Tracking mud onto his kitchen floor.  Leaving imprints in the dirt on the baseball field, adorning Stan’s withering heart.

* * *

 

It was a while before Kyle really said anything.  He was content to just put it out of his mind—into some deep, dark, corner—but repressing and bottling shit up was something he had never really had much self-control in.  He tried not to let it eat away at him.  His best friend would be fine, he was just going through a particularly rough patch.  On the outside, Stan had seemed happier with life than he had in a while—Kyle was just worried about the questionable lengths he went through to get there.

On a cold October evening, Stan showed up at his window, chucking pebbles at the glass and startling the boy out of his homework-induced reverie.  Kyle was used to being greeted this way, but usually only one or two pebbles sufficed.  Stan threw them with such fervor Kyle was worried he might shatter the glass with wear. He opened his window and shouted downwards.

“Dude, the back’s open.  Calm the hell down.”

Stan mumbled something Kyle couldn’t make out, but it sounded like agreement.  He stumbled over to the door under Kyle’s window and opened it, his feet heavy as they traveled up the stairs.  Kyle swore under his breath.  Typically, this routine was so Stan wouldn’t wake up his parents—the intensity with which he was stomping all over the floor killed that pretty fast.  He waited for his friend to creak open his door, wondering what explanation he had to give this time.

Kyle nearly fell over when Stan came tumbling through his door.  He made a beeline for the floor, but suddenly caught his balance before he could have rammed his chin on the side of Kyle’s bed.  He threw his hands up cautiously, his brain aligning with reality, and slowly crawled up onto the bed, warm and beckoning after the cold connecting their houses.

“Stan,” Kyle started, crossing his arms.  “What the fuck.”

Stan smiled weakly at his best friend, leaning back on the balls of his hands and nearly losing his balance.  “I miiiissed you, Kyle.”

“You know that phones exist, right.  You could have called me, maybe warned me you were going to show up this late at night?”

“It’s hard,” He pouted.  “I just wan—wanted to hang out…”

Kyle peered into him, his stomach suddenly sinking.  “Oh, god, Stan.  You’ve been drinking _again?!_ ”

He look like he’d been kicked.  “N-no, Kyle, I ju...st—”

The boy flinched as soon as Stan opened his mouth.  “Jesus, dude, your breath fucking reeks!  Are you honestly going to try and talk your way out of this one?”

“I… I—”

“I mean fuck!  You call me once a week at midnight slurring bullshit into my ear, I can barely ever make out what you’re saying, let alone figure out how I can help you!”

“I… do?”

“You don’t even _remember?_ ” Kyle went back to his computer chair, sighing and rubbing his temples.  “Stan, I—”  

He caught himself.  He had things he wanted to say, words bubbled up inside him that he had no idea were even residing there.  There was no point in saying them now, when Stan’s mind was clouded with alcohol, when he likely wouldn’t remember tomorrow.  He never did, no matter what Kyle said.  His veins ached with anger, something he was so used to—something that felt so natural—but he fought his instinct and switched over to compassion.

“Is there a reason why you came over?  Why you needed to talk to me so bad?”

Stan hiccuped, and Kyle didn’t know if it was from the booze or from holding back tears.

“Just... try to explain to me best you can what’s eating at you, okay, Stan?”

He nodded weakly, and took a breath.  “Wendy broke up with me again.”

Kyle sighed.  

“Sh-she just called, and told me to come meet her at the bridge, ann’she… she just… I was all alone, a-and…”

He broke down, messily pulling his hat off and cramming it against his face in a drunken attempt to dry his tears and muffle his sobs.  He was absolutely pathetic—always much more in tune with his emotions than anyone else Kyle knew—but the redhead tried not to see it as weakness.  Over the last year or so, he’d tried his best to consider Stan’s way of seeing things, even if there was no way he could possibly understand.  He owed his best friend that much, after all they’d been through.  Kyle scooted his chair closer, pulling down Stan’s hands to their laps and placing his own over them.  

“Did she give you a reason?  Anything?”

“She—” He shuddered, choking back another sob.  “I donwanna... t-talk about it, Kyle.”

“Okay,” He said plainly.  “That’s okay, Stan.  What do you want right now?”

Stan was silent.  The silence that permeated the room made Kyle shuffle uncomfortably in his seat.  His best friend was trying to clear the fog cradling his brain, and Kyle couldn’t help but feel like they didn’t have enough time.  Like there was a bomb about to go off, like the counter would go down and a wall would come crashing down between them, severing their ties.  The feeling of impending doom sent a coldness raking across Kyle’s back, but he didn’t take his eyes off Stan, holding his hands tighter.  When Stan spoke, his voice was raspy and weak, like he hadn’t used it in years.

“Hug me, dude.”

Kyle didn’t hesitate in the slightest.  He got up from the chair, sat down on the bed with Stan, and immediately took him in his arms.  Like a mother cradling a child, he felt Stan’s shoulders shake harder as he tried not to make a sound, crying into Kyle’s chest.  Neither of them said anything.  They’d been here before.  Stan was prone to breakdowns, especially over Wendy.  The only thing new this time was that he burned Kyle’s nostrils when he spoke, and stopped remembering the words that assuaged his aching heart when morning came.

“Kyle,” He half-whispered, half-slurred.

“Yeah, Stan?”

“Tell me everything will be okay.”

He bit his lip, and tightened his grip around the boy.  

“It’s going to be okay, Stan.  This is only temporary.  I promise.”

The words hung there in the quiet air, and Kyle didn’t know if he was saying it for Stan or for himself.


	3. courage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The salty-sweet feeling of caring and worrying he’d so admired before dissipated. All that was left in place of it was resentment that this mess was the individual he’d chosen to lay his deepest of affections on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was going to be longer, but i couldn't really find a good place to pinch the following scene off. it feels better this way, so hopefully u guis are ok w/ the length.

School drawled on a few mornings later, and the sighs that reverberated from Stan’s short frame seemed to hit Kyle’s ears harder than they had before.  He was suddenly anxious—something uncharacteristic to the redhead—and he wondered how on Earth things managed to get to that point.  He was thinking, far too much, about exactly what was going through Stan’s mind every second they were together; and especially when they weren’t.  The feeling pooling in his stomach was surprisingly bittersweet and he didn’t like it, but… he found himself oddly entranced by precisely _how much_ he cared. It ate away at him and made him shift uncomfortably in his seat, and he was suddenly struck with the weight of just how much he cared about his best friend. It was oddly moving, however annoying.

Time passed, and Stan left the classroom at least twice to go to the bathroom—with his backpack. That concerned Kyle more than anything.  It was normal for girls to start doing that, but Stan had no excuse.  He was tempted to go after him, but the conversation that would ensue was predictable, their teacher dismissing him under the guise of the two boys wanting to skip and hang out.  It looked like the oldest, easiest trick in the book.  The teachers at SPE were dumb, but they weren’t _that_ dumb.

Instead, Kyle waited until the lunch bell rang and him and Stan lined up for lunch.  He was oddly quiet, tapping his foot lazily as they slid their trays across the metal railing, and Kyle made a poor attempt at conversation.

“So…” He trailed off.  “You wanna start that homework tonight, or are we going to procrastinate in the name of perfection for a week, again?”

Stan squinted one eye as if he was in deep thought.  “I dunno man.  We should probably break that habit before Middle School starts up.”

“Ugh.  Don’t remind me, dude.  I stress enough with one class, I don’t need 7.”

“Tell me about it.”  Stan hung his head, swaying just a little and catching his balance.  Kyle raised an eyebrow, his stomach pricking uncomfortably. It felt like there were termites gnawing at his nerves just from the sight of Stan stumbling a little.

They made their way to the table where Cartman was going on about his latest plan to either a) make fast money, b) humiliate someone on his shit list, or c) eradicate an entire race of individuals he found unpleasant.  Kyle tuned out the conversation—as he often did—and chose to cast brief glances at Stan, who picked at his food unenthusiastically. The conversation Cartman was having with Kenny and Butters doppled in and out of his skull.

_“...fucking works, Kinny!”_

_“Dude, that’s bullshit and you know it.”_

_“Nuh-uh, ‘cause I tried it, and…”_

Stan had stopped eating his food completely, now.  There was a fourth of a slice of pizza laying stagnant on his tray, and he didn’t seem motivated to get up and throw it away.  His palms were pressed against his cheeks and he stared intently at an unimportant speck on the table, and Kyle tried not to stare too much.  He didn’t look unhappy, just disinterested in the world around him.

_“...but Tommy Gilbert is goin’ around tellin’ everyone you made it up, Eric!”_

_“Tommy Gilbert’s mom is a worthless drunk with a 2 dollar haircut! Who fucking cares what that jackass says? He’s probably short on brain cells from mommy kissing him before bed every night!”_

Stan stood up suddenly, his thighs banging against the table with force.  He was stiff, unflinching from the pain, but his face looked as if he’d been hit anyway.  Despite the violence of his motion, he made his exit without words.  Cartman watched him go with an apathetic expression, the ends of his lips slowly curling into a small smile (no doubt at the amusement of someone else’s pain.)  

Kyle noticed his hands were sweating, and he nervously dropped his gaze to the floor, where Stan’s backpack was missing. He tried not to swear under his breath as he bussed both his and Stan’s trays, and rushed off toward the bathroom.

* * *

 

“Stan?  Dude, you in here?”

Kyle’s answer was not his best friends voice, but the sound of weight shifting and rubber hitting ceramic.  It was easy to deduce that whoever was in the far stall was hitching their feet up on the toilet.  Kyle pictured his best friend with his knees to his chest, and sighed before speaking again.

“Stan, I know you’re in here, dude.  I can see your backpack on the floor,” He said plainly.  “Dick move using the handicapped stall, by the way.”

“Everyone does it.” He mumbled, only loud enough for Kyle to hear. The bathroom was empty, but his voice was hushed as if he was scared of the world finding him in there.

The redhead chuckled despite the ominous air hanging around his head.  Smiling slightly, he trod toward the stall at the end and leaned against the door precariously, hoping to god that he didn’t pick up something gross from the cesspool of germs definitely swirling across it.  

“Hey, Stan?” He inquired.  “You wanna talk to me about why you’re here? Why you’ve been here pretty much all day?”

Stan's voice fell.  “I’ve been feeling sick.”

“You’re not a good liar, man.”

Kyle heard another sigh echo throughout the room as fluorescent lights buzzed and whirred above him.  Stan’s boots propped down on the floor and he zipped his bag up, opening the stall.  When he approached, he refused to make eye contact with his best friend, and Kyle chewed the inside of his cheek, staring down at Stan’s bag.

“There a reason you need that?”

He tensed.  Kyle’s stomach sunk lower.

“I was brushing my teeth after lunch.”

It didn’t sound like a lie, but he pressed.

“And before that?  The other few times you came in here with it?”

Stan was silent.

“I mean, brushing your teeth in the stall doesn’t make that much sense, does it?”

Well, shit.

“Kyle, can you just like, lay the fuck off?”

He snorted.  “Oh, I need to lay the fuck off?  How about you?”

With that, the redhead yanked Stan’s bag out of his hand, fiddling with the zipper while the other boy dived onto Kyle. They both went tumbling down to the rotted linoleum, cringing both in pain and disgust.  Stan was a limp, deranged octopus on top of his friend, struggling against the air like it was made of sludge.  Kyle blinked his eyes shut tight, then opened them slowly.  The bag was unzipped, strap laying loosely on his opened palm, and a single water bottle had toppled out onto the floor, like a sparkling treasure amongst other assorted objects.

Stan scrambled to get up and snatch his belongings back, but Kyle already had his grip around the bottle, knuckles white and throat tightening.  He unscrewed the top and sniffed at it, flinching fiercely when the pungence burned his nostrils.  Shouting ensued quickly.

“God _damnit_ Stan!”

Stan just looked up at him, annoyed, with rosy cheeks and balled fists.

“You going to explain yourself?”

“What’s there to explain?” He sniffed.  “I leave, I come here, I take some swigs, I go back to whatever I was doing.”

“Jesus christ,” He groaned.  “Literally what the fuck is the purpose?!”

“The purpose, dickpinch, is to make everything stop being shitty for a while,” He said, like it was common sense.  “For fuck’s sake, Kyle, you’re the one who said I’m unbearable to be around without it.”

“That’s completely ridiculous!  I spend plenty of time around you when you’re not drinking, and you’re fine!”

“Yeah?  When’s the last time?”

Kyle tilted his head.  “Uh, like, yesterday?  We all went out to Shakey’s, had a good time, you didn’t pull your ‘this pizza is shitty, this music is shitty, why is everyone so shitty?’ speech and we all had fun.”

“And you think I wasn’t drinking then?”

There was silence.  When Kyle spoke, his voice sounded as if the hope and faith he had put into his words prior had drained from it completely. _Of course he wasn’t.  He didn’t seem like it, so he… couldn’t have been, right?_

“Y-you weren’t acting very drunk?”

“Because I wasn’t,” Stan stood up from the gritty floor.  “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t drinking.  This is kind of a routine thing, Kyle.”

Kyle shook his head.  “Fucking shit, Stan.  I can’t believe you.”

“What is your problem, dude?  It doesn’t affect you at all how I get through my day.  I don’t make fun of how long it takes you to shower, or that weird face you make when you brush your teeth, or—”

“Those things aren’t slowly killing me, Stan!” Kyle’s face was red with anger, an intensity that Stan had only seen when Cartman was the subject at hand.  “It’s ridiculous that this is normal to you, it’s fucked up that you aren’t worried about it at all!”

“There’s nothing to worry about.  Give me back my vodka.” He sounded like a belligerent child being scolded by his mom.

“Like hell!” Kyle shouted.  “I’m pouring this shit down the sink!”

“ _No!_ ” Stan screamed back, and his voice broke. “Kyle, _please_.  Don’t do this.  Not after what happened out there.  I know you have to deal with Cartman all the fucking time, talking shit about who you are.  But I’m not used to it.  I can barely make it through the day anyways, without his asshole comments piled on me, just…”

The boy looked at his feet, hands crammed in his pockets, fiddling with his unworn gloves.  He looked like he would burst into tears any minute, and Kyle felt like he was going to puke.

“...please don’t take my booze.  It’s all I have to keep me going.  The world is shitty, and this is the only thing that makes me feel normal.”

Kyle said nothing.  He just looked at his best friend, begging him, ready to fall to his knees and cry in order to get a bottle of acidic piss back, and wondered why this was his definition of normal.  The bell rang, and Stan jolted slightly.  Kyle raised his head toward the ceiling, his expression falling into the beginning of what his heart defined as some form of agony.

Resigned, he let the plastic bottle fall out of his hands and hit the floor, rolling to Stan’s feet.  Stan desperately dove for it, despite no longer having anyone to fight.  Kyle’s footsteps echoed heavily on the tile as he left for class, no more words to offer what was left of his best friend.  His hand was on the door when he heard words he was used to hearing--when Stan fucked up, when Stan wanted to say sorry, and most importantly--only when Stan had enough drinks in him. Pitifully, weakly, and only ever with his eyes shut, or to the back of Kyle’s head.

“Kyle. I love you…”

His heart felt like it was collapsing in on itself. All he wanted to do was scream no, you don’t.  No one who loved me would make me feel like this.

The salty-sweet feeling of caring and worrying he’d so admired before dissipated.  All that was left in place of it was resentment that this mess was the individual he’d chosen to lay his deepest of affections on.

Kyle went home that night, unable to sleep, or think, or concentrate on anything that wasn’t one Stan Marsh and how he was doing. He rolled over, nerves on fire and heart aching in all the worst places, picturing a boy with jet black hair and bright blue eyes making a bed out of beer cans and empty bottles.

Eleven wasn’t the age for things like this.  But then again, when the fuck did they ever get the pleasure of dealing with regular kid problems?

Kyle dreamt of happier times.  Kyle dreamt of Stan.

 

 


End file.
